Jansenism, the Liturgy and Ireland

Jansenism, the Liturgy and Ireland | Rev. Brian Van Hove, S.J. | Ignatius Insight

Too often writers will say that classic Irish religious culture was "Jansenistic." This erroneous claim can be examined and dismantled. Newer scholarship readily depicts a more accurate picture.

Medieval European Catholicism was "abbey centered." Early monastic life had evolved into the great abbatial sees. The monastic ideal was the only ideal for the Christian, and the laity absorbed "the culture of the monastery" into their morals and piety. For the Christian West the thought of St. Augustine overshadowed the other Church Fathers, and this dominance shaped monastic spirituality as well as popular Catholicism. Augustinianism was "rigorist" by its nature, and this should surprise no one. Eamon Duffy says the pre-Counter-Reformation church in Ireland was "profoundly Augustinian." [1]

When St. Columban (+ 615) traveled from Ireland to France as a missionary, he brought monastic "rigorism" or "Celtic austerities" with him. He was exiled from France to Italy for criticizing the immorality of the Frankish court and the laxity of the bishops. [2] The Irish were not to be accused of laxity since popularized rigorism was ingrained. It became cultural. Rigorism was an attitude and an orientation, a discipline but not a doctrine. For examples of northern European countries finding somber religion congenial, take note of Scandinavia and The Low Countries.

Now a question arises. The Jansenists were the "Disciples of Saint Augustine," so therefore was this identification congruent with existing Irish tradition? The question is answered by specifying the source and quality of the Augustinianism under discussion. Popular rigorism derived from tradition and monastic heritage ‒ the remote past ‒ was quite different from the "university, elitist" reform movement of the Early Modern period (1615-1789) on the European Continent. We have here two different sources, one in place in Ireland and the other a foreign phenomenon. Jansenism fit the conditions of French politics and the logistics of academic Louvain, not the unique situation of Ireland.

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Comments

[Brian J. Schuettler]

With all due respect to Father Van Hove, anyone who has spent any amount of time with relatives from the "old sod" knows that there was a dreary sadness that permeated many in the Irish Church and some first generation Irish Americans, a sadness that robbed many of them of the Spirit's joy and promise of Heaven and replaced it with a somber, melancholy fear of Hell. I am not saying this was, by any stretch, true of all Catholics in Ireland and I don't mind if you don't want to call it Jansenism. But it was real and it was there and a lot of people attributed it to Jansenism. No doubt many will disagree with me. So be it.

[Reverend Brian Van Hove, S.J.]

Mr. Schuettler seems to miss the point. The sadness he refers to is another side of the "rigorism" I was at pains to distinguish from Continental Jansenism.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

I didn't miss the point,Father,I simply expressed an opinion relative to Jansenism in general. Your argument is too strenuously assertive to not invite opinions such as mine.

e.g. "Too often writers will say that classic Irish religious culture was "Jansenistic." This erroneous claim can be examined and dismantled."

[Brian J. Schuettler]

Speaking of Jansenism (regardless of it's geographical manifestation) I love this comment by Flannery O'Connor as quoted in: Flannery O'Connor's Religious Vision
George N. Niederauer | DECEMBER 24, 2007

Still another Catholic fault O’Connor described is, I believe, an evergreen reality in the church: a Jansenistic disdain for human weakness and struggle and distrust of questions, speculations and discussions of any depth. Of the pseudo-faith of such persons she said:

I know what you mean about being repulsed by the church when you have only the Mechanical-Jansenist Catholic to judge it by. I think that the reason such Catholics are so repulsive is that they don’t really have faith but a kind of false certainty. They operate by the slide rule and the Church for them is not the body of Christ but the poor man’s insurance system. It’s never hard for them to believe because actually they never think about it. Faith has to take in all the other possibilities it can.

In considering such people’s self-righteous judgments of others, she made an acute observation: “Conviction without experience makes for harshness.” By contrast, Christians who have struggled with their demons are better equipped to show compassion toward others.

[Father John Crowley]

Perhaps the flip-side of moral rigorism, which Father Van Hove finds to be a better descriptive phrase for Irish Catholicism than Jansenism, is modern culture's self-assurance that there is no sin and that we are owed admission to heaven by the merciful God who is love. The thought of the two men behind the Jansenist movement, one Jansenius himself and the other Baius (Jansenius was correcting his work), are important for understanding the modern idea of Jansenism and the points Father Van Hove and Brian Schuettler are making regarding grace, the Gospel and Irish Catholicism.

Jansenism and Baianism, especially the former, seem to have taken on lives distinct from the original teachings of Jansenius and Baius. Henri de Lubac's works on nature and grace help us understand the original doctrines of these men and their respective errors in this regard. De Lubac's work entitled, "The Mystery of the Supernatural," summarizes their outlooks as follows. Baius seemed to think that God owed men and women salvation before the fall and grace after the fall. He was essentially Pelagian and his thought makes proud and vain demands upon God, as if nature and grace were not the Lord's gifts to us. Jansenius' thought sees the Lord as stingy with his grace and mercy, those who are saved as few and that God is capricious in his judgments - while human nature has no value at all (somewhat like Luther).

I simply wanted to interject this historical point into the discussion as some background information on the matter at hand.

Finally, the rigorism of Irish Catholicism, from its earliest saints to the state of the Catholic Church in Ireland today, is only half of the story about what is distinctive in Irish Catholicism. Irish Catholic saints, especially those monks who helped to renew Europe and spread the Gospel there after the fall of the Roman Empire, were filled with wonder at the beauty of Creation. This awe and wonder filled their poetry, their teachings on the faith (influenced by its exercise in Patrick's works and teaching), their illuminated manuscripts and the monastic form of life that brought holiness and vitality to the Catholic Faith that was so characteristic of the Church in Ireland during the first millenium.

Perhaps the sadness that Brian Schuettler alludes to in "old Irish Catholics" was more a result of cultural factors outside the Catholic Faith than it was attributable to Jansenism or the moral rigorism Father Van Hove mentions. The second millenium after Christ was not kind to the people of Ireland politically, especially after the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England. The loss of their country, their property, their own language and many of their lives due to persecution - both before and after the great potato famine - as well as the rhythm of life in the old country, must certainly have inculcated the Irish with a sense that life was hard, that Eternal Life was their hope for experiencing the joy of Christ in all its fullness and that living a Catholic moral life and having a deep, personal Catholic identity was what truly made the Irish great. Consequently, when Irish politics and culture began to be more secular in the beginning of the twentieth century and continue to be so today, the vitality of the Catholic Faith in Ireland as indicative of Irish identity has been lost to a great extent recently. Those Irish Catholics who had a fear of all things modern may well have been sad to see how much has been lost in the vitality of the Catholic Faith in modern Ireland and throughout the world. Recovering the sense of the sacredness of life, the beauty of Creation and the goodness of God's grace, mercy, justice and love will take generations of Catholics becoming saints and informing our culture with the Gospel once again.

The Irish Catholics I know certainly have a sense of sin, but they live life with a spirit of joy as well. Its rather easy to disconnect people of a previous generation from their cultural context and characterize them as joyless Jansenists. The same may be said of our way of thinking about the Catholic Faith in Ireland and in America today, when we speak of cultural Catholics.

Forgive my garrulous rambling on. It is another trait that is somewhat characteristic of both the Irish and Irish-Americans. I assure you that I refrain from practicing it when I preach from the pulpit.

May the Lord continue to bless Irish Catholics and renew the Church in Ireland and America in our time.

Father John Crowley

[Brian J. Schuettler]

"Irish Catholic saints, especially those monks who helped to renew Europe and spread the Gospel there after the fall of the Roman Empire, were filled with wonder at the beauty of Creation. This awe and wonder filled their poetry, their teachings on the faith (influenced by its exercise in Patrick's works and teaching), their illuminated manuscripts and the monastic form of life that brought holiness and vitality to the Catholic Faith that was so characteristic of the Church in Ireland during the first millenium."

Thank you, Father. In attempting to ascertain the distinction between rigorism and Jansenism in Ireland, it is especially important to mention the men and women who have been the central force of authentic Irish Catholicism. Your insights are extremely valuable. I thank you and may Saint Patrick, that great lion of God, intercede for Ireland today.